Search Results for stent

WellPoint’s Braly Quits Amid Pressure (WSJ): Under pressure from investors unhappy with the health insurer’s performance and direction, WellPoint Inc. Chief Executive Angela Braly resigned Tuesday, and the company’s board said it would begin a search for a permanent replacement.

FDA Panel Backs Wider Use of Abbott’s Humira (WSJ): Abbott is seeking expanded approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its anti-inflammatory drug Humira to treat ulcerative colitis. Humira currently is approved to treat rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and other inflammatory conditions.

New distress-screening programs for cancer patients aim to help with emotional and psychological issues that can interfere with treatment and adversely affect outcomes, as WSJ’s Informed Patient column reports today.

With as many as 1 in 3 U.S. adults having prediabetes, as WSJ’s Informed Patient column reports, health-care providers are ramping up education and management programs to help people make the lifestyle changes — such as weight loss and exercise — needed to ward off full-blown Type 2 diabetes.

Nanotechnology Could Heal Damaged Hearts (WSJ): Scientists used nanotechnology to repair tissues damaged in heart attacks in rats and pigs, suggesting a possible new way to treat people who’ve suffered the same ailment.

FDA Limits Use Of Stryker Brain Stent (WSJ): Use of the devices was narrowed to patients aged 22 to 80 whose arteries were severely constricted and who’d had at least two previous strokes from which they recovered, amid data showing the stent may raise health risks….

As the summer swimming season gets into full swing, environmental groups and public-health agencies are warning of mounting disease risks at beaches and lakes due to storm-water runoff, sewage pollution and other forms of contamination.

The nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council Wednesday released its annual beach-water-quality report showing that U.S. beaches last year had the third-highest number of closing and advisory days in more than two decades….

Some people who undergo weight-loss surgery end up trading their struggle with food for one with alcohol – but perhaps not for the reason you think.

The largest prospective study to examine the connection found that 10.7% of patients who underwent a bariatric operation called roux-en-Y gastric bypass got in trouble with drinking by the second year after the surgery. That compared with about 7% of patients who drank too much before they had the same operation, reflecting a 50% increase in relative risk.

A federal task force has once again examined the use of hormone replacement therapy, and is again recommending against hormones for preventing fractures, dementia and other chronic diseases in women who are already past menopause.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued the draft guidelines on the use of estrogen and progestin to take into account new findings from the landmark Women’s Health Initiative study that looked at hormone use, along with other studies issued in the past decade.

The recommendations don’t apply to women who are experiencing menopause and use hormones to treat hot flashes and other symptoms.

Coffee drinkers are getting a bit more reassurance that their beverage of choice may not be bad for them, and possibly even can be linked to living longer.

A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that people who drink coffee may tend to live slightly longer than those who don’t, though the finding comes with a lot of caveats and will surely not end the debate over the health effects of coffee….

Nearly two out of three Americans don’t follow their doctor’s orders properly when taking prescription drugs, neglecting to take their medications or seeking out pills that weren’t intended for them, according to new research to be released later this week.

The findings point to the nation’s growing problem with prescription-drug abuse, according to Quest Diagnostics….

With bone and joint problems the leading cause of disability in the U.S., and with demand for joint replacements expected to surge from aging baby boomers, orthopedic surgeons aren’t likely to want for patients.

Justices Question Health Law (WSJ): The Supreme Court’s conservative justices sharply challenged the Obama administration’s health-care overhaul Tuesday, raising the prospect that the law could be struck down, while the liberal and conservative wings seemed inclined to split evenly over the question of whether the “individual mandate” is constitutional.

Doctors at Yale University have successfully implanted a biodegradable scaffold seeded with a four-year-old girl’s own bone-marrow cells to help treat a serious heart defect, as WSJ’s Heartbeat column describes. The tube — about three inches long — is made of polyester material similar to that used in the manufacture of dissolvable sutures. Six months after Angela Irizarry’s surgery, it had disappeared, replaced by a bioengineered conduit that acts like a normal blood vessel. The vanishing act for the scaffold was expected, but what happens to the cells, including stem cells, that spawned the new vessel?…

What’s in Fake Avastin?: Roche’s Genentech says salt, starch and chemicals found in animal feed, plastics and cleaners — but no cancer-fighting ingredients — were found in recently discovered counterfeit versions of Avastin, the WSJ reports. A company spokeswoman says it should be assumed the chemical compounds “are potentially unsafe” but that the company hasn’t received reports of serious side effects …

In today’s article on sleep research, WSJ Personal Journal news editor Andrea Petersen examines the chronic sleep deprivation of today’s kids, noting that the problem has persisted for at least a century. Too little sleep can have health consequences for young people and adults alike, from obesity and memory problems to depression and higher risk of substance abuse. Andrea took questions from readers about the connection between sleep and health in a live chat on Feb. 14, moderated by Personal Journal deputy editor Leslie Yazel. Replay the event.

Now, new stats from the CDC show that about half of teen moms who got pregnant unintentionally weren’t using any form of birth control at the time of conception. The survey also asked the next question that might spring to mind: For the love of Mike, why not?

The American Cancer Society is changing how it develops its screening guidelines.

This might sound like a fairly obscure topic. But debates over screening for breast and prostate cancer often include dueling guidelines, including those from the ACS and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

The ACS says it has revised its methods “to create a more transparent, consistent and rigorous process for developing and communicating guidelines.” (And they will align with principles laid out in …